An imaginary conversation regarding _Bad Bear Detectives_ by Daniel Pinkwater

"This is a really annoying book," Wendy says.

"Yes, it really is," Evan says.

"I really liked the first Irving and Muktuk story," Wendy says.

"I also really liked the first Irving and Muktuk story," Evan says.

"And I know the other Irving and Muktuk stories are pretty popular," Wendy says.

"Have you heard that about the other Irving and Muktuk stories?" Evan asks.

"Yes I have," Wendy says.

"Oh," Evan says.

"And the plot of this one was pretty good. And I liked the ending," Wendy says.

"Yes, it had some funny parts and a funny ending," Evan says.

"But if I had to read 'Irving says' and 'Muktuk says' aloud one more time, I think my brain would have forced my body to find a large sharp knife and stick it into my own heart in self defense," Wendy says.

"I would not be a bit surprised," Evan says.

poetry friday

Unprepared again. Isn't today Thursday? Anyway, just grabbed my favorite poem off the net:

I Go Back to May 1937 (from The Gold Cell)

I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,
I see my father strolling out
under the ochre sandstone arch, the
red tiles glinting like bent
plates of blood behind his head, I
see my mother with a few light books at her hip
standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks with the
wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its
sword-tips black in the May air,
they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,
they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are
innocent, they would never hurt anybody.
I want to go up to them and say Stop,
don't do it--she's the wrong woman,
he's the wrong man, you are going to do things
you cannot imagine you would ever do,
you are going to do bad things to children,
you are going to suffer in ways you never heard of,
you are going to want to die. I want to go
up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it,
her hungry pretty blank face turning to me,
her pitiful beautiful untouched body,
his arrogant handsome blind face turning to me,
his pitiful beautiful untouched body,
but I don't do it. I want to live. I
take them up like the male and female
paper dolls and bang them together
at the hips like chips of flint as if to
strike sparks from them, I say
Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.

-- Sharon Olds